Joy to the World
Notes
Transcript
Good morning, Thanks for joining us for week 3 of “The Christmas Playlist” each week we have used a familiar Christmas Carol to help us tell and celebrate the account of Christ’s birth.
according to an article found on Crossway.com
Isaac Watts was one of the great hymn writers in church history, and I guess nothing shows that better than the fact that he wrote one of his most famous hymns by accident. In 1719, Watts published a book of poems in which each poem was based on a psalm. But rather than just translate the original Old Testament texts, he adjusted them to refer more explicitly to the work of Jesus as it had been revealed in the New Testament.
One of those poems was an adaptation of Psalm 98. Watts interpreted this psalm as a celebration of Jesus’s role as King of both his church and the whole world. More than a century later, the second half of this poem was slightly adapted and set to music to give us what has become one of the most famous of all Christmas carols:
Just a moment ago we sang “Joy to the World” . It is a song about the end of the story of our redemption instead of the beginning.
However, It is impossible to celebrate Christmas without keeping the end in sight. We have the proclamation of Great Joy because we know how the story ends.
Today we are going to look at the four verses of the Song Joy to the World and the scriptures behind them.
I. The Prayer of Christmas
I. The Prayer of Christmas
Verse 1:
Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King!
Let every heart prepare Him room,
Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King!
Let every heart prepare Him room,
But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’s sake.
For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
II. The Praise of Christmas
II. The Praise of Christmas
Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ,
Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ,
How many of you sing loudly in the car when no one is around or at home when your cleaning the house or doing other chores?
One of the great Christmas theologians said this:
"The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear." – Buddy The Elf
"The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear." – Buddy The Elf
In this popular Christmas movie Elf. Santa Claus is in danger of not being able to fly his sleigh due to an epidemic of the lack of Christmas spirit. When it looks like Christmas is doomed and Santa will be locked away in the slammer a young woman remembers this quote
so she stands up on a car and begins to carol at the top of her lungs, soon the crowd joins in and Santa's sleigh is powered in enough time to fly away and save Christmas.
Now some of you are asking did he really just quote Buddy the Elf in a sermon. Yes, yes i did.
While this is a silly illustration there is truth to the idea. We as believers should use our voices to proclaim with confidence the message of Christmas so that others might believe, repent and be saved.
Look at this scripture together.
proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.
We need to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ unhindered. We need to have confidence in the message we sing about every week. The message we celebrate during this holiday season. We need to believe that it has the power to change hearts. We need to believe that the Gospel is the answer.
Then we need to proclaim is without fear.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.
Wasn’t awesome on Friday night to be able to proclaim the gospel publicly to many who may not know christ? I ll be honest, that was the most nervous I have been in a long time. Not because I had to proclaim the gospel. That was the exciting part but rather because I just felt the joyful weight of it. This could be the night where men, women, and are redeemed from the curse of sin and death and rescued from the power of hell.
Which brings us to our next point.
Why is the gospel such good news? because it comes with a promise. The next point I want you to see is...
III. The Promise of Christmas
III. The Promise of Christmas
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
nor thorns infest the ground;
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
nor thorns infest the ground;
And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.”
This line of the song speaks to the curse which sin brought into this world. The curse that life would be hard. The very things needed for life would be hard to attain.
Even more terrible than that is the curse of eternal death. One proof that the Scripture is real is the fact/reality that all mankind dies.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God is paying us in death because of Sin.
Yet we see that Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection he redeemed us from the curse.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.
Yet in his return this redemption would be complete. The very creation itself will be destroyed and then restored to its perfection.
His return that he would put an end to the curse.
This is the hope. This is the promise of Christmas. That one day we will live in a perfected and restored creation. A new Heaven and a New earth will be created.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.
Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.
Then the one seated on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.”
IV. The Pinnacle of Christmas
IV. The Pinnacle of Christmas
He rules the world with truth and grace,
and makes the nations prove
the glories of His righteousness
and wonders of His love
He rules the world with truth and grace,
and makes the nations prove
the glories of His righteousness
and wonders of His love
There is a day coming, When Christ will return to rule as King. When he comes to rule every person, creature, every blade of grass will obey all of His commands.
For it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to me, and every tongue will give praise to God.
This is the pinnacle of it all. For those of us who know him as Lord and Savior this is our Hope. One day our great redemptive King will rule and reign physically from the new heaven on the new earth.
That we will be in His presence forever.
The great story of scripture begins and end with this Idea.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
God walked with man in the Garden of Eden. Eden was the place where heaven and earth collided. Where the physical and spiritual co-habitat-ed together. The Place where God dwelled with man.
Then we see this will one day happen again.
I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.
Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God.
God walking with man once more. Unfortunately many have taught that heaven is nothing more than perpetual church service where mankind exist in some type of spiritual only existence. That is not scripture. God will once again rule and reign from heaven on earth. It’s Eden again....
This is the pinnacle of it all. Immanuel God with us.
I’d like to close with us reading Psalm 98 out loud together.
A psalm.
Sing a new song to the Lord, for he has performed wonders; his right hand and holy arm have won him victory.
The Lord has made his victory known; he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.
He has remembered his love and faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen our God’s victory.
Let the whole earth shout to the Lord; be jubilant, shout for joy, and sing.
Sing to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and melodious song.
With trumpets and the blast of the trumpet shout triumphantly in the presence of the Lord, our King.
Let the sea and all that fills it, the world and those who live in it, resound.
Let the rivers clap their hands; let the mountains shout together for joy
before the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world righteously and the peoples fairly.